About
Jermistry
- title in Elvish
- Xoomij listen
- All about Darjeeling
- Learn Hebrew- start with
- Vineyard Music
- "To You" (me on Irish Whistles)
- "Coogee Day" (JM on Kurzweil)
- NZ photoes
- Tassie photoes
- NY&VA photoes
- Монгол&Сибирь
- Kelong photoes
- Cellgroup Stuff
- James' Grad
- Yunnan Pix
Archives
- ноября 2003
- декабря 2003
- января 2004
- февраля 2004
- марта 2004
- апреля 2004
- мая 2004
- июня 2004
- июля 2004
- августа 2004
- сентября 2004
- октября 2004
- ноября 2004
- декабря 2004
- января 2005
- февраля 2005
- марта 2005
- апреля 2005
- мая 2005
- июня 2005
- июля 2005
- августа 2005
- сентября 2005
- октября 2005
- ноября 2005
- декабря 2005
- января 2006
- февраля 2006
- марта 2006
- апреля 2006
- мая 2006
- июня 2006
- июля 2006
- августа 2006
- сентября 2006
- октября 2006
- ноября 2006
- декабря 2006
- января 2007
- февраля 2007
- марта 2007
- апреля 2007
- мая 2007
- июня 2007
- июля 2007
- августа 2007
- сентября 2007
- октября 2007
- ноября 2007
- декабря 2007
- февраля 2008
speak friend and enter
понедельник, августа 02, 2004
Home
Meditations on the Book of Revelations and CS Lewis from the wee morning hours.
Home... we all long for home. From the avid traveller to those who work day jobs, from the hoboes to the homeys. Home is that place, at the end of the day where we find that familiar familial safety. It is not a building or even people. It is a place in our hearts where the body, soul and spirit can find peace and rest.
For while here in this temporal realm, we build our hopes of home from images of stick and stones, verbiage and personage. Home is that reference from which we set off daily to seek battle with the the wild woods of the day, to the hot, sweaty marketplace of humanity and the endless toils of our fields. Each morning we leave the safety and comfort of home to engage in the risky and unforgiving enterprise which is life in a fallen world, only to return it beset, worn and broken.
For the traveller, home is where we set off from on a quest and mission. What draws us out from our realm of familiarity is that sense of the unknown, danger, risk and possible gain of experience, of treasures and of spoil from the hunt. Many times, however, we are robbed of our senses and inundated by the weary jading of the world. The path that leads us is convoluted, twisting and confusing. Our senses are dulled and our hearts are worn. Hope is but a memory, and friends are an illusion of doubt and haze. That is when arriving home is a reward- we leave just to return to all that is familiar, warm and safe. We travel so that we can find our home again. We travel so home may be a point of reference.
Did anyone tell you that this world is not our home? Nay, we are mere pilgrims passing through hostile, unforgiving and barren lands full of endless toil, seas of drowning snares and desert islands of nightmares. The zone between dusk and dawn, where the sun never really sets, nor really rises; the drought between waking and sleeping. We are caught in that soulish unsettling of experience we call Reality, the fear of the temporal, with no real hopes of eternity nor permanence. Our hearts are held ransom by the clichés of fashion and fads and fast fading passion. We are beset by fear, unbelief and hurt on all sides, at all time. At best, we are dulled to the pain through self administered lies and narcotics.
Thankfully, we have a greater Hope, than that which all the world affords nor could time itself out-run nor contain. That Hope is Christ, our Eternal home and Rest. He is our Shelter and our Keeper. More than the unfathomable reach of eternity and timelessness, He is our immediate Home here in this life. The Shepherd and the Gate, whom we are invited to pass through to find refuge and rest from the menace of the world's wolves and the harshness of rocky, waterless terrain with which we choose to struggle and stife through. His hand holds and encompasses our entire existence, more than from before birth, well into what is past death, more than in the minds of those who think of us, and more than in the mouths of those who speak of us.
He is More than our entire Existence, however passing and vapid the world makes us out to be. In Him, we have Significance and Meaning. And that counts more than anything- that we have Richness of Meaning to the Infinite, than poverty of insignificance to that which is passing.
Finally, the Hope of Home for us who are in Christ is this: the promise of our true Home; where pilgrimage ends and we arrive at gates of the Holy City, welcome by a thousand fanfares, and greeted by Reepicheep and a cloud of faithful witnesses cheering us in.
"Further up and Further in!" the saints chorus!
Oh, we are drawn in to our Home. Everything is deep-er, real-er, rich-er than ALL of what we have experienced in the poverty that is earth. Above all, there is an eternal sense of Familiarity- we have been here before... in fact, we do know this place; we have known this place all our lives, and have infact, been searching for it in our hearts. And now we finally see it, live it and breath it. We are led in by faces familiar but now rested and refreshed. People we've been longing to chat and laugh with all our lives. There is a richness in the familiarity of colors and form, but now everything is sharper, deeper and more infinite. Every blade of grass sharper and greener, each breeze cooler and fresher, each stream more musical, deeper, sweeter and each laughter happier and fuller. The mountains are more majestic and magnificent, each valley more radiant and verdant. In contrast, all the glories we have seen in our fallen world is drab insipid mere-ness.
In the New Jerusalem, the Home of Peace, we are ushered into the audience of SarShalom, VladiMir, the Prince of Peace, our Magnificent Obsession. We come before the Great White Throne, the Throne of Grace, the Mercy Seat, and as our eyes meet that of our Savior's, we are immediately drawn to say, "I know You... in fact, I have known You all my life... and Your strong Hand, the tender smell of that embrace... its been there all along, hasn't it?"
To arrive Home is to say, "Why! I've been Home along!"
Meditations on the Book of Revelations and CS Lewis from the wee morning hours.
Home... we all long for home. From the avid traveller to those who work day jobs, from the hoboes to the homeys. Home is that place, at the end of the day where we find that familiar familial safety. It is not a building or even people. It is a place in our hearts where the body, soul and spirit can find peace and rest.
For while here in this temporal realm, we build our hopes of home from images of stick and stones, verbiage and personage. Home is that reference from which we set off daily to seek battle with the the wild woods of the day, to the hot, sweaty marketplace of humanity and the endless toils of our fields. Each morning we leave the safety and comfort of home to engage in the risky and unforgiving enterprise which is life in a fallen world, only to return it beset, worn and broken.
For the traveller, home is where we set off from on a quest and mission. What draws us out from our realm of familiarity is that sense of the unknown, danger, risk and possible gain of experience, of treasures and of spoil from the hunt. Many times, however, we are robbed of our senses and inundated by the weary jading of the world. The path that leads us is convoluted, twisting and confusing. Our senses are dulled and our hearts are worn. Hope is but a memory, and friends are an illusion of doubt and haze. That is when arriving home is a reward- we leave just to return to all that is familiar, warm and safe. We travel so that we can find our home again. We travel so home may be a point of reference.
Did anyone tell you that this world is not our home? Nay, we are mere pilgrims passing through hostile, unforgiving and barren lands full of endless toil, seas of drowning snares and desert islands of nightmares. The zone between dusk and dawn, where the sun never really sets, nor really rises; the drought between waking and sleeping. We are caught in that soulish unsettling of experience we call Reality, the fear of the temporal, with no real hopes of eternity nor permanence. Our hearts are held ransom by the clichés of fashion and fads and fast fading passion. We are beset by fear, unbelief and hurt on all sides, at all time. At best, we are dulled to the pain through self administered lies and narcotics.
Thankfully, we have a greater Hope, than that which all the world affords nor could time itself out-run nor contain. That Hope is Christ, our Eternal home and Rest. He is our Shelter and our Keeper. More than the unfathomable reach of eternity and timelessness, He is our immediate Home here in this life. The Shepherd and the Gate, whom we are invited to pass through to find refuge and rest from the menace of the world's wolves and the harshness of rocky, waterless terrain with which we choose to struggle and stife through. His hand holds and encompasses our entire existence, more than from before birth, well into what is past death, more than in the minds of those who think of us, and more than in the mouths of those who speak of us.
He is More than our entire Existence, however passing and vapid the world makes us out to be. In Him, we have Significance and Meaning. And that counts more than anything- that we have Richness of Meaning to the Infinite, than poverty of insignificance to that which is passing.
Finally, the Hope of Home for us who are in Christ is this: the promise of our true Home; where pilgrimage ends and we arrive at gates of the Holy City, welcome by a thousand fanfares, and greeted by Reepicheep and a cloud of faithful witnesses cheering us in.
"Further up and Further in!" the saints chorus!
Oh, we are drawn in to our Home. Everything is deep-er, real-er, rich-er than ALL of what we have experienced in the poverty that is earth. Above all, there is an eternal sense of Familiarity- we have been here before... in fact, we do know this place; we have known this place all our lives, and have infact, been searching for it in our hearts. And now we finally see it, live it and breath it. We are led in by faces familiar but now rested and refreshed. People we've been longing to chat and laugh with all our lives. There is a richness in the familiarity of colors and form, but now everything is sharper, deeper and more infinite. Every blade of grass sharper and greener, each breeze cooler and fresher, each stream more musical, deeper, sweeter and each laughter happier and fuller. The mountains are more majestic and magnificent, each valley more radiant and verdant. In contrast, all the glories we have seen in our fallen world is drab insipid mere-ness.
In the New Jerusalem, the Home of Peace, we are ushered into the audience of SarShalom, VladiMir, the Prince of Peace, our Magnificent Obsession. We come before the Great White Throne, the Throne of Grace, the Mercy Seat, and as our eyes meet that of our Savior's, we are immediately drawn to say, "I know You... in fact, I have known You all my life... and Your strong Hand, the tender smell of that embrace... its been there all along, hasn't it?"
To arrive Home is to say, "Why! I've been Home along!"
